System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 has six components. It is important to understand the role of each component in order to have a better design and implementation.
For small deployments, test environments, or a proof of concept, you can install all of the components in one server, but as is the best practice in the production environments, you should consider separating the components.
Let's start by reviewing each component of VMM 2012 and understanding the role it plays.
VMM console
This application connects to the VMM management server to allow you to manage VMM, to centrally view and manage physical and virtual resources (for example, hosts, VMs, services, the fabric, and library resources) and to carry out tasks on a daily basis, such as VM and services deployment, monitoring, and reporting.
By using the VMM console from your desktop, you will be able to manage your private cloud without needing to remotely connect it to the VMM management server.
The management server
The management server is the core of VMM. It is the server on which the Virtual Machine Manager service runs to process commands and control communications with the VMM console, the database, the library server, and the hosts.
Think of VMM management server as the heart, which means that you need to design your computer resources accordingly to accommodate such an important service. It is possible to run VMM 2012 as a highly available resource (clustered service or clustered VM).
Database
The database server runs SQL Server and contains all of the VMM data. It plays an important role when you have a clustered VMM deployment by keeping the shared data. The best practice is to also have the SQL database in a cluster.
VMM library
The VMM library servers are file shares, a catalog that stores resources, such as VM templates, virtual hard drive files, ISOs, scripts, and custom resources with a
.crextension, which will all be visible and indexed by VMM and then shared among application packages, tenants, and self-service users in private clouds.The library has been enhanced to support services and the sharing of resources. It is a store for drivers for Bare Metal deployments, SQL data-tier apps, and web deploy packages.
In a distributed environment, you can group equivalent sets of resources and make them available in different locations by using resource groups. You can also store a resource in a storage group that will allow you to reference that group in profiles and templates rather than in a specific virtual hard disk (VHD). VMM will automatically select the local resource.
You can also have application profiles and SQL profiles to support the deployment of applications and databases to a VM after the base image is deployed. Application profiles can be server App-V packages, web applications, or a SQL data-tier.
Self-Service Portal
It is a web-based Self-Service Portal, now removed from SC 2012 SP1, that lets self-service users launch and deploy VMs and services based on previous rules created by the VMM administrator.
VMM command shell
VMM is based on PowerShell. Everything you can do on the GUI, you can do by using PowerShell. VMM PowerShell extensions make available the cmdlets that perform all of the functions in VMM 2012.
As you may have noticed, although VMM management is the core, each component is required in order to provide a better VMM experience. In addition to this, for a real-world deployment, you also need to consider implementing other System Center family components to complement your design. Every System Center component is designed to provide part of the private cloud solution. The Microsoft private cloud solution includes the implementation of VMM 2012 plus the following utilities:
System Center 2012 Unified Installer: This is a utility designed to perform new, clean installations of all System Center 2012 components for testing and evaluation purposes only
System Center 2012 App Controller: This provides a common self-service experience across private and public clouds that can help application owners to easily build, configure, deploy, and manage services
System Center 2012 Configuration Manager: This provides comprehensive configuration management for the Microsoft platform that can help users with the devices and applications they need to be productive while maintaining corporate compliance and control
System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager: This provides unified data protection for the Windows environment, delivering protection and restore scenarios from disk, tape, off premise, and from the cloud
System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection: This is built on the System Center Configuration Manager and provides threat detection of malware and exploits as part of a unified infrastructure for managing client security and compliance to simplify and improve endpoint protection
System Center 2012 Operations Manager: This provides deep application diagnostics and infrastructure monitoring to ensure the predictable performance and availability of vital applications, and offers a comprehensive view of the datacenter, private cloud, and public clouds
System Center 2012 Orchestrator: This provides the orchestration, integration, and automation of IT processes through the creation of runbooks to define and standardize best practices and improve operational efficiency
System Center 2012 Service Manager: This provides flexible self-service experiences and standardized datacenter processes to integrate people, workflows, and knowledge across enterprise infrastructure and applications
When deploying System Center, there are some other systems and configurations you need to consider.
Although the domain controller is not part of the System Center family and it is not a VMM component, it plays an important role in the deployment of a private cloud as VMM requires it to be installed on a domain environment.
WSUS plays an important role with reference to the private cloud as it is used to update the Hyper-V hosts and library servers for compliance and remediation.
The App Controller provides a self-service experience through a web portal that can help you easily configure, deploy, and manage VMs and services across private and public clouds (Azure). For example, moving a VM from a private cloud to Azure, creating checkpoints, granting access, scaling out deployed services, and so on.
The App Controller is a replacement of the VMM Self-Service Portal in SC 2012 SP1.
The following table will guide you through choosing which System Center component is necessary as per your deployment:
|
Scenarios |
Enabling technologies | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
AppCtrl |
Operations Manager |
Orchestrator |
Service Manager |
VMM | |
|
Fabric provider | |||||
|
Bare Metal deploy |
√ | ||||
|
Integration with network and storage |
√ |
√ | |||
|
Host patching |
√ | ||||
|
Host optimization / power optimization |
√ | ||||
|
Monitoring of the fabric |
√ |
√ | |||
|
Capacity reporting |
√ |
√ | |||
|
Service provider | |||||
|
Service templates (offerings) |
√ | ||||
|
Service and VM catalog |
√ |
√ |
√ | ||
|
Life cycle (create, upgrade, retire) |
√ |
√ |
√ |
√ | |
|
Application and SLA monitoring |
√ | ||||
|
SLA and capacity reporting |
√ |
√ | |||
|
Service consumer | |||||
|
Request quote or capacity (cloud) |
√ |
√ |
√ | ||
|
Request/deploy VM |
√ |
√ |
√ |
√ |
√ |
|
Request/deploy service |
√ |
√ |
√ |
√ |
√ |
|
Quota enforcement |
√ |
√ | |||
|
Request approvals |
√ |
√ | |||
The Planning for high availability recipe in this chapter
Chapter 7, Scripting in Virtual Machine Manager
Chapter 10, Integration with System Center Monitor 2012